You Have Terminal Cancer?​But you don't Look Sick?​​

Life you are like a boyfriend to me, I fucking love you, I would literally push a baby out of my 5 cent piece sized LOVE hole for you and then the next minute I hate you and I wouldn't even turn your burning fish fingers over in the frying pan for you. There are times I'd happily take pictures with you and post them on Facebook, being all braggy about how good you are to me and the next day I'm gonna be taking those loving life pictures down, because you're so horrible to me. This is seriously what life with terminal cancer is like, particularly towards the latter end of the disease, the good days become fewer and the bad days become more common.

The unpredictability of this disease can be somewhat confusing to people who've never been affected by this disease or other terminal illness, one of the most difficult things people find hard to grasp, is that I can be out and about, with it all hanging out, on Saturday and be bed ridden, in crippling pain, regurgitating everything that passes my lips and nauseated beyond belief on Monday for four consecutive days and then be up and about with it all hanging out again and repeat. This is just how this disease works, especially with my tumours being throughout my abdomen and pelvis. Your bowels are constantly moving, meaning your tumours are constantly moving, this also means poo is a big issue, especially if you get backed up, (I've had major issues with pooing all my life, even before my disease) throw in scar tissue, throw in pain and sickness meds which constipate you and this is why my pain goes from a 4 to a 10 in moments. Right now for example, I've got pain in my lower right back from my liver tumours which only arose two hours ago, prior to that I hadn't had this type of pain in months. This might help people who don't quite understand, maybe understand a little bit more as to why I go into hiding for days at a time and my hideouts are becoming increasingly more common and longer.

Today I had a great day, I'd pooed over the last few days (YAY!!!! Roll out the toilet paper, flush that loo, let's celebrate!) and I was drinking water without it regurgitating , then this evening after dinner, the incredible nausea came over me, sweaty, hot, but unable to vomit, it's just a horrible feeling that comes over you without the actual vomiting to make you feel better. I've become a cry baby of late, I just get to a point of sickness that the tears start rolling, my Dad's asking can he help, no, he can't, how can you help nausea, watching on helplessly as your daughter breaks down and that was it; needle time! I have a nausea injection called cyclazine that literally burns your flesh, causes a build up of blood under the skin and large lumps all over my ass. It's got to the point that we're running out of space to inject, you can't do it too close to the crack, as you can hit the sciatic nerve, which I can't imagine being fun. The injection is so painful, when it hits certain spots I cannot contain screaming in pain, both Mum and Dad did an injection separately and as they injected, the butt was so hard the syringe burst off, the medicine spurted all over each of them and the needle remained hanging in my ass. All three of us dread that evening injection, I think both of them literally hide until I've found the other to give me the injection, I was informed today that my ass is just one big abscess waiting to happen, it's no wonder the boys are knocking my door down....sarcasm, so we're looking at other options for the cyclazine to be administered.

So things have not been the best the past few weeks, but I have to believe in the fact that I will have an "up" soon, because we've had too many consecutive downs of late. I'm not being alarmist and I'm not writing this for attention or sympathy, I'm writing my truth and my thoughts down, for you to read, not to judge me or feel sorry for me, that ain't my bag. My honest truth at the moment is that this will be my last Christmas, as hard as that is for you to read, as hard as that is for my family to read, just imagine how hard it is for me to write. Someone that has never believed "you're not going to make it to blah blah blah", even when they said I wouldn't make it to Christmas in 2014, as upset as I was, deep down I just believed that I would make it and it wouldn't be my last. The person that calls life her boyfriend, who isn't ready to break up yet, sadly, it seems that life, my boyfriend, is going to get in there first and dump me, I just hope he isn't a cheap bastard and at least holds out to this Christmas and my birthday, I hate when people dump people right before Christmas or birthdays just to avoid buying a present, yes, people seriously do that!

Where are we right now? Fuck knows, I'm more confused than a hermaphrodite bi-sexual with gender dysphoria, unfortunately when you're diagnosed with terminal cancer you're not given an instruction manual, you might get a crappy 2 page print out from some Cancer clinic, but each disease is different, everybody's demise is different, I just fucking hate that I know mine isn't too far away, nobody deserves this, nobody, not me, not anyone.

At a time of year that I'm usually bouncing off the walls, driving everybody crazy with Christmas music and movies, I'm starting and ending most days in tears, this isn't me, it's never been me. Throughout this whole shit fight I've never been a sooky lala, but lately I've become one.

There are so many fears that come with this disease and those fears change each day, every day a new fear arises, like today I thought to myself about how frigging difficult a person I am to live with, even before cancer, I'm a total, raging, lunatic with OLD (Obsessive Lisa Disorder, similar to OCD, but waaaay more compulsive). With this illness comes a highly compromised immune system, meaning if I see you wipe your nose, I'm immediately asking for blood tests proving that you don't have a cold, if you have the runs, you're out and so on. I've had it a couple of times before, a simple cold for you, can become an ICU visit for me, with my blood pressure not going above 70 and a fever of 41 degrees and a doctor enters the room and tells you, you're probably not going to be around much longer, all from a common bloody cold.

Whilst yes, getting a cold and dying is a fear, it's not the one I'm talking about, my fear is that I am so much hard work, this disease is so much hard work, that when I'm gone and the funeral dust has settled, that my loved ones will sit back and think 'as sad as all this shit is, it's nice to finally be able to sit and take a breath and relax, without listening out in the background for Lisa to yell out for something'. I'm scared they'll feel relief, all this crap I write, you all must think I want people to build shrines to me, get me cryogenically frozen, sit me in place of the TV and basically wear black everyday mourning me until their time comes, but I don't want that, I would never want that, I simply want to be remembered for my good side, for the love I had for friends, family and life, not for my shitty, bitchy side, which has been much more prevalent of late.

If I could have one Christmas wish, it would of course be the obvious, for myself and for everyone suffering and that no one ever has to suffer again, eradicate this bastard. Whilst many of you are wishing that your credit card bill had a couple less zero's on it or that you could win the lotto, here I am literally wishing for another Christmas after this one, let's take a minute to take a breath and spare a thought for those that are doing it worse than you this Christmas, because no matter how bad life is, there's always someone out there worse off than you and me.

Sooky lala signing off for now, I hope your week has been more kind to you. Stay Fabulous Rockstars ❤️🎄

A photo of my first outing in days, yep to the supermarket and home again, with my little shadow of course ❤️🤘🏼🎄

So here I am, I've just looked at my reflection in the mirror and for months now I've been going on at nauseam about my bloated, double chinned, Bert Newton and Amanda Vanstone's love child face and tonight I am looking emaciated and gaunt, eye's sunken and more and more like a contestant on Survivor every day, it's horrible.

Around the time of the Cup, I was starting to feel more human, more like myself facially, I wasn't quite there, but I was starting to get my groove back. Here I am six weeks later and I still look six months pregnant from tumours, tumour fluid, bloating and my good old friend constipation, my thighs still remain bloated from medication, but the rest of my body is losing weight and losing it quicker than a celebrity Mum loses her post baby weight from breast feeding hhmm hhmm, tummy tuck, hhmm, sorry I have a frog talking bullshit in my throat......breast feeding my ass, I'm not saying it doesn't help, but Mum to be doesn't go in on Tuesday, pop Bub out Wednesday and have a pool party on Monday with no jiggly bits in sight.......just sayin'.

I know what you're thinking, you can't win with this girl, well all I want is to be somewhere in the middle, just plain old average. I don't want to be a bloated mess and I don't want to be a skinny wreck. I'm tired of wasting meals that my Mum puts great effort into making, as soon as I take the first bite I'm trying to push back the urge to regurgitate. I force myself through half a meal, most times, but by the time I've gotten comfortable on the lounge after dinner, I've got Mum or Dad running for a sick bag or I'm hobbling to the toilet, trying to avoid a scene from the Exorcist, without the head turning and demonic possession.

Is it really too much to ask, to at least look a little normal on the outside, when the insides look like a scene from a Saw movie, a nice happy medium. I also remember the last time I had major issues like this, it was days before I was going under the knife for the fifth time. I remember I was on holiday up north with my Ex and I had been admitted to Cairns emergency, where they inserted an NG tube, whilst I was awake, with no local, that would have been my third or fourth, they put an 11ml tube up your nostril and feed it down your oesophagus until it hits your stomach (I've had one go into my lung by mistake before, that wasn't fun), the problem is, when they're feeding this plastic tube down your nose, you have a bunch of food that hasn't been digested sitting in your stomach, so it makes you sick at the same time as the nurses are telling you to swallow the tube, you're trying to get rid of the vomit, definitely not pleasurable, but I've become really good at them over the years, I don't even gag anymore, I know such an achievement. The NG tube is inserted so you can receive liquid food, rather than eating it. When I came out of the mammoth eight or nine hour surgery, my colorectal surgeon, whom they called in mid surgery as it was more detailed than they thought, told me I had days if I was lucky, there were tumours throughout just about to cause major blockages and without that surgery, I probably wouldn't have been alive the following week.

Here we are again, in the same pain, the same discomfort as that February back in 2014, but this time, I have no back up plan, no contingency, so not only am I shit scared I'm going to have a major blockage and die, I'm also scared I'm going to die gaunt and swollen, just give me a break.

​My poor niece Ava had to once again witness her Aunty collapse to the ground in pain, writhing, trying to catch my breath to scream for someone to inject me with my pain Med. I was upstairs and Mum, Dad and Ava were outside in the backyard. Mum heard me after what felt like an eternity, but would only have been a minute. Mum was yelling trying to locate where in the house I was, Ava, likely watching on in horror, Mum found me and injected my meds, in the meantime I could hear Ava sort of sobbing behind Mum, pretend sobbing I think, Ava went downstairs and told my Dad, Lisa needs you, but Mum had already found me. It's not right that a 3 year old should have to witness her Aunty, so feeble and weak. Shortly after Ava came over to me and asked if I was fine, as I normally soothe her telling her it's fine bubba when I'm having a painful episode, but I didn't soothe her this time, so I think she needed reassurance. I told her I was fine and Ava promptly went to the backyard and told Mum in a stern authoritative voice "Lisa is NOT fine Nanna".

As I sit here and type and bitch and moan at 1am in the morning, I'm reminded of a beautiful message I received from a work colleague from way back when. I won't name names as she may not want to, but she mentioned that a person had come into her workplace and was going through cancer. My workmate mentioned myself and the blog and to her surprise the person said she reads my blog and it keeps her focused. Such a very small thing, in such a very big world. It just shows you that you can touch a person's life without even knowing, you can give them a source of comfort and help in their healing, all without meeting. This made my heart sing, to know that this interaction had happened at the opposite end of the country, whilst I was probably brushing my teeth or watching housewives of something somewhere.

Such a small interaction, in such a big world and it has made my week........still doesn't change the fact that I'm pissed off I can't keep a sip of water down, but it's something nice to think about when my head is in the loo.

To random person, with this horribly random disease, thank-you, I can't promise things will get better or worse, but know that you certainly made me smile and "workmate", you know who you are, thank-you for being the messenger.

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend, filled with tinsel and Christmas inspired coffees and cocktails and of course Stay Fabulous Rockstars ❤️🤘🏼🎄

As you all know, I wasn't blessed with children and I've often questioned whether I have experienced the deepest love a person can experience in their lifetime. Yes I'm a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, an Aunty and so on and I know I'm loved and I love them, but is our love for each other as deep as a love for a partner or your own child?

I've been in love, I know what that feels like and it compares to no other love, well any love that I've had. There's something special about a loving relationship, a feeling that is pretty indescribable, but I can say it's a deep and unwavering commitment to another soul. When I've been in the depths of my deepest love with a partner, it's like I walk around with love blinders on, I would walk in front of a speeding train to save them, I've felt that and it doesn't compare to a love you have for your parents or siblings, it's no more important, it's just a different type of love and when it hits you, you'll know, because it's both exhilarating and scary at the same time, Scary? Yes, because you're in so deep you're frightened something might take that away from you, you're scared they don't feel the same, it won't last or it's not real.

As I thought about the different types of relationships in my life and the type of love we have for one another I had a realisation, all this time I've worried about how much people love me, how much people will miss me and what impact have I had on their lives? I especially worry about Ava, you see everyone else has had time to love me, to make lasting memories with me, but Ava? Well she's only three, yes we've made memories, yes we've developed a loving relationship, even though she's going through the terrible threes at the moment and she's more unpredictable than a USA election, we still have what I believe to be a very special bond, even though this evening she told me she doesn't love me because I was mean to Nanna, but moments prior to that she was following me everywhere and I turned around and said "Ava, stop following me" (jokingly), to which she replied "but Lisa I'm only following you because I love you", then when I wanted to have a shower she was following me and I told her again to stop following me and she said, "but Lisa it's because I still love you that I'm following you." That kid is like having a shower with the dishwasher on at the same time, she goes from hot to cold and back again in seconds, but I love her.

My fear I suppose, is that if and when I do kick the bucket, will she be old enough to remember our relationship? So my light bulb moment? I've always thought no matter how special these relationships, I'm leaving no-one behind, more specifically I'm not leaving a child behind, another one of those bonds that people say is like no other, in fact many say there is no deeper a love than the love you have for your own child, but then I thought about the love I have for my Aunty Bernie, I'm very lucky actually, I've been blessed with wonderful aunties on both sides of my family. They are all amazing women, each are loving and caring in an open and unique way, they all have wicked sense of humours (they get that from me), but I've sadly not had much physical contact due to living in another country, thankfully for Facebook we've been able to connect more and three of my Dads sisters came to Australia to visit from the UK just this year.

So why my Aunty Bernie? Why did she stand out? I used to basically live at her house when I was a kid, she was able to visit us in Australia more than my other Aunties and as well as that my other aunties have so many nieces and nephews that they could be confused for a less controversial version of that 19 kids and counting family, whereas my Aunty Bernie only had myself and my brother.

I have one of those loves for my Aunty that's unlike any other love I have for anybody else. Bernie is one of the kindest souls you'll ever meet, she is so devoted to myself and my family, that she has dropped everything and flown out here to Australia a few times in recent years to support my family and get us through the hard times, there are times she's been sitting on a plane not knowing if I'll be dead or alive upon her arrival, can you imagine that feeling? Bernie has gotten me through so many low moments over recent years, she is a beacon of light for all of us in our darkest hour, but especially me.

We didn't always have this relationship, I'm sure there's a few times she probably would have killed me after catching me going through her Fine Young Cannibals or Boy George records when I was a kid, if it weren't for the high probability of Jail time, (she still lived at home with my Grandparents on my Mums side and I would stay there often), I probably would have been wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of some Lough in Ireland years ago. God I was scared of her as a kid! She was certainly a fiery one in her early 20's, but as we both grew up, we grew closer, rather than apart, even if we are thousands of miles apart, our love and admiration for each other has grown and continues to grow with each day. Bernie has a husband and a son now, which I'm so happy that she has, as she deserves to love someone in that indescribable way and someone deserves to be loved by her in that indescribable way also.

If I can have that love and commitment for my Aunty, an indescribable love, a never-ending love, then surely if I can manage to stick around long enough, Ava can have an indescribable love for me too, because I know my love for her is already indescribable and I don't have to have a husband or a child to experience deep love or be loved deeply in return, I'm surrounded by indescribable love.

To all my Aunties, my love for each of you is indescribable.

To my Uncles, my love for each of you is indescribable.

To all of my family and friends, my love for you is indescribable and in the end I'd say that's a pretty special thing to know, that you've loved indescribably and been loved indescribably, even if you think you haven't, when you sit back and think about it, you probably already have. Stay Fabulous Rockstars ❤️🤘🏼🎄

Author

My name is Lisa Magill and I have been navigating the minefield that is cancer since just months after turning 30, people have been saying to me for years that I should put my thoughts into writing and as time has progressed I thought I had left it too late, well here we are nearly 4 years in and for some unknown reason I've decided to start to write today.

What do I want you to gain from reading my blog? Well I'm not going to say enlightenment and I 'm not going to get you to radically change your diet and start chanting at a full moon, to be quite honest this blog is more about me writing it, than you reading it and if someone happens to google cancer and inadvertently clicks on my link, well that's just a pleasant bonus.

I plan on talking and posting about the good, the bad and the ugly side of all things cancer, fashion, food, family, what you blogosphere type would probably call a "lifestyle" blog.